


Secrets

by Medie



Category: CSI: NY
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-02
Updated: 2010-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-08 15:25:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're just friends</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets

They're friends. Standing in the hospital, under Mac's watchful eye, they're friends. She presses close, with that simple gesture unwittingly revealing the vulnerability she usually fights to hide. They're friends but even being her friend is a battle. A tight rope walk of quips, smirks, and light touches. It takes nearly dying to let him get this close to her, holding her even for the briefest of moments. Stella Bonasera, all brash and bravado, doesn't ask for comfort and never wants support from anyone. She's the most supportive person he knows but she still can't accept it. Like doctors being the worst patients.

Letting her step back, letting the moment widen to include Mac...he'd sooner cut his arm off and throw it in the East River, but he's still doing it. Stella smiles at him, they're friends, and if he could get a hand on the guy who did this to her, who put those shadows in her eyes, he doesn't want to think about what he'd do.

The rush of rage, white hot and deadly, behind his eyes is terrifying and reassuring all at once. She's smiling, and they're friends, and he shouldn't be feeling like this. Like someone nearly tore something precious from him and they deserve to pay. He's just her friend, she's not his no matter what he wishes.

-

The hotel room Mac's reserved for her is nice, too nice for their budget but Stella knows he doesn't care. Whichever department accountant complains, he'll listen then dismiss them. At the end of the day, he gets what he expects and the department agrees. Nothing Mac Taylor does is frivolous, neither is this.

The shower, like the room, is luxurious but she can't enjoy it. It will be a long time before she can even think of that again. The leisurely soaks in the tub, the long hot showers after a hard day at work all gone. Gone, at least, until she can think of them again and not get sick.

Instead, she washes quickly, closing her eyes tight and fighting the rising nausea. The safety of her bathrobe and the warmth of the bed becomes refuge. Curling up there, blankets wrapped tight about her knees, she stares at the phone and finds herself thinking of Flack. It's unexpected but welcome, the memory of his eyes, warm and reassuring, fill her memory and she catches herself smiling. They're friends but she's never really appreciated it until now, not really. Flack's always there, flirting, teasing, and even protecting but she never stops to really think beyond that. Not until she saw it in his eyes at the hospital, the anger for her sake, and the realization warmed her. It warms her still.

The temptation to call is nearly overwhelming. If she called, he'd drop everything and be there. She knows he would but she won't call. It's too soon, she's too raw, and she knows if she called...they wouldn't be friends when he left and nothing would be right again.

When it happens, when that happens, it won't be like that. She can't do that to him, she can't do that to them.

They're friends, and they're more, and they deserve better than to be tied forever to the worst night of her life. She won't make him that, she won't make him that.

She won't and she reaches for the remote instead.


End file.
